


1. Discovery

by Red Charade (traciller)



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Barry has multiple freak outs, Len is maybe a little more obsessed with the Flash than people thought, Linda and Iris are awesome, M/M, they're adorable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-17 23:02:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5888611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traciller/pseuds/Red%20Charade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barry and Len both independently discover fanfiction. Their reactions to it, however, are quite different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Discovery

It had started with a simple enough Google search. The kind that he did rather often, keeping tabs on the things The Flash was doing while Captain Cold wasn’t around. He went to the usual news sites first, the ones he knew the URLs for by heart and the journalists he knew did the most coverage on The Flash.

First on the list was always Iris West, for obvious reasons. He even read the articles she wrote that weren’t about The Flash, as it was his opinion that you could never know your enemy’s allies well enough. Besides, he liked Iris, respected her. She wasn’t afraid to stand up to a supervillain, give him a piece of her mind, even if that supervillain had just threatened her life.

Well, not seriously but she hadn’t known that. He wasn’t even sure Barry had figured out he’d been bluffing. But, Len wasn’t stupid enough to make a modification like the one he’d claimed to have made on his gun.

And yet, Iris West, who had probably been the most physically powerless person in the room, had had no qualms about telling him off. Not that he hadn’t deserved it. He had.

So yes, he liked Iris West and was glad Barry had someone like her in his corner. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told her he’d read her article. He’d read every single one of her articles and he made a habit of it, whether they were about The Flash or not. She was a damn good journalist.

But, she was also the best source of information on The Flash, considering she was so close to him. She had the most frequent updates and she had them before anyone else. She also had more insight and detail than other journalists and, due to her proximity to Barry, he knew he could trust it. And the questions she did leave the reader with weren’t the usual superficial bullshit most other journalists added in; they harbored their own clues as to what was actually going on if you knew to read between the lines, which he did.

Her work was a good place to start, and from there he went to the few other journalists who didn’t use The Flash as a fluff piece for clicks. Len really wasn’t interested in the latest gossip about some celebrity saying they’d sleep with The Flash if given the opportunity, or some journalist wondering whether The Flash was seeing anyone.

Once he was finished checking specific journalists, he would do a general Google search to see if there was anything interesting some amateur might have gotten. It would probably surprise people to realize just how valuable cell phone footage of The Flash could be sometimes.

However, tonight he was looking up a recent fight between Captain Cold and The Flash which occurred in a semi-public area. It had been late, so the area was mostly deserted and the lighting would be bad, but with Barry’s lightning and the glow from Len’s charged cold gun, it shouldn’t be difficult for cell phone users who did happen to be around to get some choice footage.

Now, as a frequent Internet user, Len knew that when you Googled things with your filter off, you needed to be careful, because porn would show up anywhere and sometimes the links looked rather unassuming until you clicked on them.

But, despite that knowledge and the fact that he was actually rather well versed with computers, he forgot the first rule of the Internet. If it exists, there’s porn of it.

It just didn’t cross Leonard Snart’s mind that anyone would write or draw or otherwise create sexual content about Captain Cold and The Flash. Together. With each other.

Not that Len hadn’t, on perhaps frequent occasion, imagined some rather sexual scenarios between himself and Barry Allen. Just as a masturbation aid, of course. And, honestly, if the kid didn’t want people doing that then he shouldn’t run around in skin-tight leather with a figure like that, aerodynamics be damned.

He should have realized that he was probably not the only person to have had that thought, but he didn’t.

At least, not until he clicked on a link that had both his and Barry’s code names in it. He hadn’t recognized the site name, but that wasn’t unusual when he was going through searches like this, looking for individual people and obscure sites.

When he first started reading, he realized right away it wasn’t a normal blog but he kept reading anyway to find out what they were saying. It didn’t take much longer than that to realize that this was a story someone had written, something that had never actually happened, because he would have remembered the events going on here, the conversations.

This clearly wasn’t what he was looking for and he really should close out of this tab and continue on with his task, but...the story was actually pretty good and the writing well-done, even though there were things that were inaccurate. But, he let those things slide because most of it was dialogue or the way Barry looked. He couldn’t really fault someone, from the looks of it an amateur writer with a lot of raw talent at the very least, for not being able to get some of those things exactly right. Barry ran around covered head-to-toe as The Flash with only certain portions of his face visible. There was no way they could know Barry was a brunet and not a blond, or that his eyes were hazel, or what his real name was. And if you didn’t know a person yourself, it stood to reason that you probably couldn’t get their personality exactly right or anticipate the things they’d say in certain situations.

Despite that, though, this person still managed to write a believable story that sucked Len right in. It was a little strange reading a story about himself and The Flash written by someone he was fairly certain he’d probably never met, but it was well-written and so Len found it easy to separate the story version of himself and his real self.

Before he knew it, he’d read 20 chapters of this story and that...was when he ran into the first sex scene. It wasn’t really a surprise, Len could see that the story versions of himself and The Flash were working up to that and by now he had actually been kind of frustrated that it was taking so long, but when he finally got there...well, he had to admit that was a little weird.

At first. The idea that someone he didn’t know was thinking about the length and width of his cock, even in a vague sense, was a little unnerving. The idea that someone was literally fantasizing about him based on a persona that he played up for the cameras and for The Flash, especially when they were in costume, was really hitting home right about then. But it didn’t stop him from continuing on. And the more he read in the scene the more he found...well...he found himself fantasizing about it happening in real life.

He mentally fixed all of the physical flaws, the wrong name for Barry, in his mind as he read this part of the story and...and damn. That was actually very well-written, too, and it was incredibly hot. Hot enough that Len was hard in his pants and very much considering leaning back, unfastening his jeans and...well. He wouldn’t. Not because it would be weird, since he’d already been doing that to thoughts of himself and Barry together for quite a while now, but...he really wanted to know what happened next after this part.

The story only went on for another two chapters, but it seemed unfinished and given the author’s note he supposed that meant it was an unfinished story. He was able to find, with a little checking, that the story wasn’t going to be left that way and the author seemed to put up new chapters rather regularly. The next one probably wouldn’t be out until next week, but he’d also discovered that this person had a lot of other stories they’d written about Captain Cold and The Flash. Len bookmarked that page to go back to later.

For now, he was going to work out his frustrations in the other room and then he was going to do more...research, because in checking to see how often the author posted new chapters and finding out about all of these other stories they’d written, he’d also found out that there was a whole treasure trove of people who were writing stories for them. Might be worthwhile to keep an eye on this. Maybe infiltrate and make sure that this wasn’t a cover for something nefarious that would negatively impact him, or that people he knew weren’t telling tales out of school and using this as a method to gossip with each other.

Exactly. Intel. 

XXXXX

Barry had just walked through the door of Picture News where he was supposed to meet Iris before heading with her to Jitters. As usual, nobody paid him much attention. It wasn’t strange for people to walk in and out, even if they didn’t work there, and everyone already knew Barry was probably there to see Iris. Only one person seemed to notice him, and it was the same guy who always noticed him when others didn’t and would give him a smile and a nod. He still had no idea who that guy was, after all this time, but he would always smile and nod back, sometimes even a wave.

When he nearly tripped over a chair he realized it was probably time to face forward again and watch where he was going. He smiled apologetically at the person who was actually sitting in the chair at the time, and headed over to where he saw Iris talking excitedly with Linda. His smile turned genuine as he approached but then morphed into a look of bewildered horror when they didn’t notice him right away and he realized what they were saying.

“Oh, Linda, that’s perfect. And then Captain Cold can lick—”

“No! Oh my God! What are you guys even saying?!” Barry asked, feeling mortified and incredibly exposed, despite his somewhat oversized layers of shirts and his jacket.

“Barry!” Iris’s eyes widened and so did Linda’s as they both turned to him at the same time, startled and looking more than a little guilty.

“We were just...well...um…” Linda trailed off, looking at Iris for help.

“Barry, it’s not what you think…” Iris said, standing up and going over to him to put her hands on his shoulders. He must have looked like he could use some steadying.

“It sounds like you’re talking about Snart and m--I mean The Flash doing things to each other...with...their hands and...their mouths…oh my God…” he’d said it out loud, what was he doing?!

“So...I guess it is what you think…” Linda chimed in, causing Barry to whimper a little.

“But, not the real Captain Cold and Flash! Just...fan versions of them,” Iris said quickly.

“What…? Fan versions?” Barry asked, sitting down in the chair that Iris had vacated because he seriously needed a moment. There were fan versions of himself and Snart? What did that even mean? Like cosplayers? Oh God! Was that a thing? Were people dressing up like him and Snart and doing weird...things...to each other that Barry definitely hadn’t ever thought about doing before??

“Mmhm, fan versions. Nothing that hits too close to home,” Iris said, figuring that a little white lie in order to comfort her best friend was called for here.

“Right! I mean, half the fandom thinks The Flash is blond,” Linda said, and Iris looked at her and smiled and then turned that smile in Barry’s direction, nodding and trying to look encouraging.

“Exactly! And they don’t know The Flash’s real name so they just make one up. So, see, it’s not the real Flash,” Iris continued.

“That...that’s…” Barry wasn’t sure if that was worse or not, but it certainly didn’t make him feel better.

“Oh, Barry...I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for you to find out,” Iris said, face and voice softening quite a bit.

“Wait, so...you weren’t ever going to tell me this was going on?” Barry asked, although he thought it might be a bit ridiculous for him to be upset about that when he was already actively wishing he didn’t know.

“Well, there were no immediate plans to…” Iris hedged. Not really admitting she had planned to never tell him, but not a true denial either.

“Why? I don’t...I don’t get it. Why would people want to think of Cold and Flash like that? Is it like a hate group or something? Is it because of the property damage? Flash apologizes for things like that all the time and helps rebuild and fix what’s broken!”

“No, Barry, it’s not...it’s just…” Iris sighed and looked over at Linda who had seemed content to be forgotten right then. Except she couldn’t ignore Iris’s silent plea for support.

“They’re just...fans online. People who like you both and like to think of you two as a couple. I mean, you two flirt so much it’s not any real wonder...and Cold does seem to get jealous when he thinks you’re ignoring him,” Linda said, shrugging. Going the gentle route wasn’t working, so maybe it was best to just rip the Band-Aid off quickly?

“We don’t flirt! We banter, there’s a difference!” Barry defended, then looked around when he realized both Linda and he had fallen into referring to him as The Flash...in a room full of reporters. But, nobody seemed to notice. Thank goodness.

Iris and Linda exchanged a glance that Barry wasn’t sure he approved of. That was their look for when they were just going to humor Barry on something. But, that was ridiculous, he and Cold did NOT flirt! Sure, Cold was gorgeous and Barry might have thought about him a few times -- just a few! -- in the early mornings when he’d woken up before the alarm with morning wood, or in the shower, but that was it! And it didn’t mean anything! He’d thought about Lex Luthor once, too, before he’d met Snart...but he’d never flirted with Lex Luthor!

Not that he’d ever had the opportunity, but still!

Oh God, he had to get off this train of thought...like, immediately. So, he was only too happy when Iris started talking again. At least, until he realized what she was saying.

“Well, either way, there are fans who think that Cold and Flash would make an interesting couple. The fanfiction is actually really good, and the fanart is, too. And it really isn’t the real Flash, Barry, nobody knows him. Nobody’s thinking of the real you doing anything with Captain Cold,” she said the last part in a whisper, so nobody would overhear.

“But, it is the real Captain Cold? Because, neither of you said anything about that,” Barry said, feeling just the slightest bit calmer, but...he wasn’t sure if that was real calm or the fake calm you get just before you have a breakdown.

“Well...I didn’t think that would be something you’d worry about? But, no, it isn’t the real him, either…technically,” Iris assured.

“It’s a little trickier to say that with Cold though. I mean, everyone knows his real name and what he looks like, because it’s kind of a matter of public knowledge at this point, but it really is just fans who don’t know Flash or Cold and don’t have any connections with them, so it’s just based on his persona and the little bit they get to see on the news. Everything else is just fans filling in the blanks with their imaginations,” Linda explained, turning to her computer and starting to type something.

“Except you two. You two are in with this stuff and you have a connection to me,” Barry said, wondering if there were other people he knew besides Iris and Linda who were doing this. And did that mean that there were people Snart knew who were doing this? Did Snart know about this?! Did he orchestrate this just to...no, no that was ridiculous even for Snart.

“Here, look. These are a couple of sites where the fandom hangs out and posts their stuff related to ColdFlash,” Linda said, turning her monitor toward Barry.

“There’s even a ship name??” Barry wasn’t new to fandom or fanworks, or even to shipping. He’d participated in it himself when he was a kid and a teenager, and throughout college. It was a good escape when things got too heavy, but after college things just got too busy and instead of slowing down things sped up. Literally, when he became The Flash.

“See! You’re already familiar with how this works. I remember the way you were over Firefly,” Iris said with a grin.

“It’s still a miscarriage of justice that they cancelled that show so soon,” Barry lamented, trying to use Firefly and his fun with fandom back then as a way to ground himself with this and try to see it from someone else’s perspective. And it kind of helped, except…

“But I never had anything to do with real people. Just characters.”

“Well...to a lot of people, Flash and Captain Cold are just characters. For all the people Flash has impacted directly, there are so many people who have only seen him on television or the Internet, caught a glimpse of from afar, or just saw his yellow lightning. And similar things with Cold. I mean, there are even action figures.” Iris shrugged, desperately hoping that Barry would continue calming down and think about this in a rational way.

It wasn’t like this was a totally foreign concept to Barry. It was just that he’d never thought he had fans. Which was probably a strange thing, since he knew the way people talked about him on the news, he knew about the action figures, and he knew about the coffee drink at Jitters. But, those things were just...well they were different. The coffee drink was just a gimmick to sell more coffee, the other merch was kind of the same, and a lot of people would buy graphic tees without even really being fans of what they were wearing on their chests. And the action figures were for little kids.

“I used to write Backstreet Boys fanfiction,” Linda said, blushing a little. Which, well...it was more relevant than Firefly since there was no way that couldn’t involve real people.

“Oh my God, I forgot about that…” Barry said, quietly. “I forgot people used to do stuff like that for boy bands.”

“They still do,” Iris said with a laugh.

“And those are definitely real people they’re writing about. But, not the actual people...they don’t know those guys in the boy bands, maybe only met them briefly for an autograph or something, and have seen their interviews. They work off of personas. It’s no big deal, really,” Linda said, taking Barry’s calmer disposition as a good sign.

“No big deal? How would you feel if people started writing stories about you and Iris because they liked your reporting?” Barry asked, because he could get how random people might not think of that, but Iris and Linda were his friends and they knew him!

The women exchanged a look and grinned.

“Well, it depends,” Iris said, in her teasing tone.

“On what…?” Barry asked, suspecting he was being set up here.

“On whether or not the fics were hot,” Linda answered with a tone to match Iris’s.

“Come on, you guys…” Barry knew he was whining a little, but he didn’t think it was fair to joke right now. This was a serious matter!

“Okay, we get why you’re upset. This is part of the reason we didn’t want to tell you right away. But, Barry, these fans aren’t hurting anyone, and they’re getting something out of this. And in any case...there’s really no way to put the genie back in the bottle. At least look things over a little. We’ll totally get it if it’s just too weird for you to really ever want to talk or think about after that, but just see all the effort and creativity they’re putting into these fanworks and how much they love what they’re doing. I think you’ll at least feel a little better about it when you see how much joy it brings people to have this outlet.”

Barry sighed. He just didn’t see why it had to be him and Cold they did that with. Couldn’t they find something from a TV show to write about?

“Fine,” he said, getting up from Iris’s chair so she could have it back if she wanted it.

“Great! Just give me a second to close out of everything here, and then Linda and I will bring our tablets and we can give you a brief crash course at Jitters!” Iris said. The two of them were already starting to get everything ready before Barry could get over his shock and protest.

As it turned out, though, the crash course really was just a crash course. They showed Barry some blogs about people freaking out happily about the ship, and drew his attention to a few fanarts and fanfiction that were well known in the fandom, as well as some music videos made up either of fanart or of news clips.

The music videos were actually what had Barry laughing about this whole thing, finally, and to his surprise...in a good-natured way, even though he knew what they were trying to allude to. It even got his mind off of the fact that Iris and Linda were clearly participating in the fandom themselves, actively, if the discussion he’d walked in on was any indication.

But, that was about it. Barry didn’t talk about or look up anything involving ColdFlash for the next two weeks, hoping to convince himself it just wasn’t a thing and he’d dreamed it all up. It was just...not talking about it or looking at it wasn’t enough to stop him from thinking about it. And the more he thought about it, the more he found himself...morbidly curious.

He remembered some of the sites that Iris and Linda had shown him and looked them up, scrolling through the fanfiction until he found one of the fics they’d told him was famous in the fandom as being especially good, a must-read for anyone in the fandom and certainly for anyone new to it...and clicked on it.

By the time he got through 12 chapters, he was actually really impressed with the writing and the flow, with the characterization. And it was true that the differences, at least for the character based on The Flash, were enough that it was easy to remove himself from it as he read. Not so much for the character of Captain Cold, though. Thank goodness the dialogue was just a little off, or he might be in danger of forgetting entirely that he was just reading a story.

Although, it was a little weird that such an accurate Captain Cold was interacting in such a way, especially in a sexual way, with a Flash who wasn’t Barry. If not for that, it might make for some interesting morning fantasies. As it was, he kind of just frowned whenever he read about Cold kissing The Flash, or sliding his hands down…

Well, that was silly, though. It wasn’t really Cold, like Iris and Linda had said, and it certainly wasn’t really him. But, why did he care anyway? It wasn’t like he was jealous. That would be absurd.

Barry was about to click the Next Chapter button, when he heard footsteps outside of his door and someone turning the handle. Gasping and in a super-speed panic, he shut his laptop lid and practically dive-bombed his bed -- nearly falling off of the other side of it -- and grabbed for the first book he could find to try to look casual like he wasn’t doing anything the slightest bit out of place.

“Barry? Dad says to tell you dinner’s ready…” Iris said, giving him a look when she opened the door and saw him on the bed like that.

“Oh! Sure, I’ll be right down. Thanks, Iris,” Barry said, giving her a smile he’d hoped was grateful but he was pretty sure had turned out nervous. Like the laughter that had slipped out a bit.

“Are you alright?” she asked, giving him a once over with a critical gaze, despite knowing Barry couldn’t be sick.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” Barry tried to sound mildly confused, but he was pretty sure he just sounded more nervous.

“I thought you were up here working on reports? Now you’re in bed reading The Hobbit?” Iris’s voice was edging toward the no-nonsense tone she took when Barry was trying to pull one over on her and she was having none of his shit.

“Oh! Yeah, I finished with the reports. And I just...thought I’d reread it? It’s a good book. And you know...super speed, so it won’t take long…” Barry laughed a bit and rubbed the back of his neck.

Iris didn’t look quite convinced, but it was that look that said instead of calling Barry on it she was going to just file this away for later consideration and let him dig his grave a little deeper.

Barry was slightly terrified.

“Well, alright. Wash up and come downstairs, we’re about to start soon,” Iris said, smiling and backing out of the room.

He heard her footsteps down the hall and down the stairs and he sighed with relief, relaxing against the bed for a moment and tossing The Hobbit to the side a bit.

“That was close and I am so screwed…”

That really only made his mind turn back toward that fanfiction again, though.

**Author's Note:**

> Credit for the Linda and Iris partners-in-crime thing goes to EreriYaoiLover_Sakura_Kiryu_Ibitsu!


End file.
